Reducing Abandoned Calls by Understanding Why

Abandoned calls are a frustrating reality for contact centres and customers, and when someone hangs up before reaching an agent, it’s a missed opportunity to deliver value and resolve a need.

It’s easy to assume that long wait times and understaffing are the main culprits, but that’s only part of the story.

To meaningfully reduce abandonment rates, contact centres need to dig deeper into caller behaviour and understand the different reasons why people hang up before reaching an agent.

To find out more, we spoke to Jeff Lear, Sr. Solutions Engineer at Enghouse, for advice on how contact centres can implement the right strategy, so they can reduce abandonment, improve customer satisfaction, and regain valuable conversations that would otherwise be lost.

Video: Improve Abandon Rate: Put Extra Effort Into Understanding Shorter Abandons

Watch the video below to hear Jeff explain why you need to put extra effort into understanding shorter abandons when looking to improve abandon rate:

With thanks to Jeff Lear, Sr. Solutions Engineer at Enghouse, for contributing to this video.

This video was originally published in our article ‘15 Proven Tactics to Reduce Abandon Rate’

5 Ways to Reduce Abandoned Calls by Understanding Customer Intent

Reducing abandonment isn’t just about fixing your wait times, it’s about understanding intent, and there isn’t one-size-fits-all, so we’ve put together a few ways to help you tackle the problem from multiple angles.

1. Identify the Root Cause

While high call volume does drive up abandonment, not all hang-ups are caused by long queues.

Many callers are dropping off early because the issue they’re calling about simply isn’t worth the wait.

These are known as “short abandons,” and they tend to persist even when staffing is optimal.

Distinguishing these from longer-wait abandons is the first step toward creating a more targeted abandonment strategy.

2. Call Back Short Abandons

Calling back customers who abandon their calls – especially the short abandons – can have a big impact, as this strategy:

• Gives you valuable insight into why the caller hung up.
• Demonstrates proactive service that most customers aren’t expecting.

You don’t need to return every missed call, but following up on short abandons shows customers you care and gives you data to improve your processes, as Jeff explains:

3. Prioritize Urgent Callers with CRM Integration

Some callers are trying to reach you about time-sensitive matters, such as rescheduling an appointment, locating your office, or asking about a service happening the same day, so if they hit a long queue, they may abandon the call and miss their opportunity.

Use your CRM to recognize these high-priority callers based on their phone number or account history, then:

• Move them to the front of the queue where possible.
• Reduce the likelihood of a critical call being dropped or mishandled.

4. Divert Simple Questions to Self-Service

Not every caller needs a live agent, and many abandon because their question is simple, and the wait time feels unnecessary.

You can reduce these early drop-offs by improving self-service options, for example you could build out an FAQ section based on the topics these callers typically ask about, and extend that knowledge into your virtual agent or chatbot.

When simple issues are resolved digitally, agents are freed up to handle the more complex ones, and customers get faster answers.

5. Learn from Abandonment Patterns

The more you analyze when, where, and why people abandon, the more effective your strategy becomes.

Look at patterns: Are drop-offs happening more in sales than in support? Do certain IVR options lead to higher abandon rates? Are specific time slots worse than others?

By understanding customer behaviour, you can refine your routing flows, adjust staffing, and build more intelligent solutions to keep customers on the line and engaged.